Marlborough (often spelled Marlboro) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 38,499 at the 2010 census. Marlborough became a prosperous industrial town in the 19th century and made the transition to high technology industry in the late 20th century after the construction of the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Marlborough was declared a town in 1660. It later became a city because of the population size.

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This community was founded on a indian settlement known as Ockoocangasett, one of several Praying Indian Towns in the region, later known as Marlborough Indian Plantation. The town consisted of local indians who had converted to Christianity and then petitioning the Massachusetts General Court for protection from other warring indian tribes.

This group as located at the intersection of two Indian trails, Nashua Trail and Connecticut path. They spoke the language of the Algonquian Indians though the local tribe referred to themselves as the Pennacooks. English settlers were welcomed by the Indians because they protected them from other tribes they were at war with.

The first settlers of most early New England Towns were of Puritan stock, which is heavily reflected in the character of early Marlborough. The Puritans were a result of the sixteenth century Reformation when the great doctrine of Right or Private Judgment was successfully asserted against the authority of the Papal Church.

In the 1650s, several families left the nearby town of Sudbury MA, 18 miles west of Boston, to start a new town. The village was named after Marlborough, the market town in Wiltshire, England. It was first settled in 1657 by 14 men led by Edmund Rice, John Ruddock and John Howe; in 1656 Rice and his colleagues petitioned the Massachusetts General Court to create the town of Marlborough and it was officially incorporated in 1660.

The Reverend William Brimstead was the first minister of the Puritan church and Johnathan Johnson was the first blacksmith.

The land grant made by the court to the Sudbury settlers in 1656 overlapped with the land grant made earlier to the Ockoocangasett. There were a number of petitions and legal actions made to rectify clean land title for the settlers. See Marlborough First Settlers, for a list of petitions and petitioners.

On Sunday, March 20, 1676, while the people were gathered in church, the town of Marlborough was attacked by the Indians. The inhabitants escaped in safety to the fort, but the meeting house and nearly all the dwellings were burned, cattle killed, and everything of value destroyed. Most residents eventually fled to Concord MA and the town was deserted for a good year. Some refugees died in Concord from their injuries. One refugee, Mary Wood (1634-1707), gave birth to a child (Nathaniel) in Concord, April 3, 1676.

The spring of 1676 marked the high point for indian attacks during King Phillip's War, on March 12, they attacked Plymouth Plantation. Though the town withstood the assault, the natives had demonstrated their ability to penetrate deep into colonial territory. They attacked three more settlements: Longmeadow (near Springfield), Marlborough MA, and Simsbury were attacked two weeks later.

Town founder, John Wood (1609-1678), was the sergeant in command of the town garrison in Oct 1675. See also the histories of Moses Newton (1646-1736). The roughly 225 English Colonial residents of Marlborough were forced to abandon the Town until after the war was over.

Casualties include:

John Bent (1663-1676) - mortally wounded at his father's house, died of his injuries at refuge in Cambridge MA.

In about 1686, many residents of Marlborough signed several key legal agreements to contract the transfer of title of large piece of indian land known as the Indian Plantation to the townsfolk. Ten Indians also signed it.

From the book History of Middlesex County - Vol III, page 822-823 by Duane Hamilton Hurd:
On 19 April 1775, news reached Marlborough that the British Army had left Boston and were marching to sieze rebel arms at Concord. Within a few hours, four companies of Marlborough men, consisting of 190 men, were marching to battle.

Roll of Captain Howe's Company - marched to Cambridge on 19 April 1775, absent from home 16 days.

Roll of Captain Brigham's Company - marched to Cambridge on 19 April 1775, saw service of 10-30 days.

Roll of Captain Barne's Company - marched to Cambridge on 19 April 1775, saw service 10-40 days.

Roll of Capt Silas Gates' Company -

Additional military Rolls - 8 month's men.

4th Middlesex County Militia Regiment - Under the command of Captain Asahel Wheeler of Sudbury they served for five months at Fort Ticonderoga in General Brickett's brigade of Massachusetts militia. They were later active at the fighting at the Battle of White Plains.

6th Middlesex County Militia Regiment - Reed's Regiment of Militia also known as the 6th Middlesex County Militia Regiment was called up at Littleton and Westford, Massachusetts on September 27, 1777 as reinforcements for the Continental Army during the Saratoga Campaign. The regiment marched quickly to join the gathering forces of General Horatio Gates as he faced British General John Burgoyne in northern New York. The regiment served in General Briskett's brigade of Massachusetts militia. With the surrender of Burgoyne's Army on October 17, the regiment was disbanded on November 9, 1777.

The patriotic fervor of Marlborough is evidenced even before the start of the war. Sometime in February 1775, General Gage dispatched Captain Brown and Ensign De Beriere with one private, poorly disguised in brown clothes and red neckerchiefs to tour the countryside west of Boston to access political feeling. They were readily identified and harassed from town to town. They arrived in Marlborough to a scene of great commotion and sought shelter overnight in the home of a known Loyalist. The local Committee of Correspondence dispatched men who began searching homes everywhere to find them, and the British then fled the town in great haste to avoid discovery. (ref: pg32 of History of the Revolutionary War by Christopher Ward.)

Marlborough’s position on the Post road brought continued evidence of the war to the Town. In the fall of 1775, cannon captured at Fort Ticonderoga were hauled through here under the direction of General Henry Knox, ox teams being requisitioned from the farmers all along the way to move this heavy equipment which was soon mounted in the fortifications around Boston, to counterbalance the cannon of the British Navy in Boston Harbor.

After British General Burgoyne’s army surrendered at Saratoga, NY, his captured troops, both Hessian and English were marched to Boston and interned in the fall of 1777. A large part of this captured contingent encamped in Marlborough, nearing the end of their three-week march. Two of Burgoyne’s men died in Marlborough and were interred in unmarked graves just off the post Road in the eastern part of the Town. Captain William Morse had left Marlborough with a company of 52 Marlborough men on October 5, 1777 to join the army at Saratoga, and arrived there October 17th the day Burgoyne surrendered.

In 1836, Samuel Boyd, known as the "father of the city," and his brother Joseph, opened the first shoe manufacturing business - an act that would change the community forever. By 1890, with a population of 14,000, Marlborough had become a major shoe manufacturing center, producing boots for Union soldiers, as well as footwear for the civilian population. Marlborough became so well known for its shoes that its official seal was decorated with a factory, a shoe box, and a pair of boots when it was incorporated as a city in 1890.[2]

The Civil War resulted in the creation of one of the region's most unusual monuments. Legend has it that a company from Marlborough, assigned to Harpers Ferry, appropriated the bell from the firehouse where John Brown last battled for the emancipation of the slaves. The company left the bell in the hands of one Mrs. Elizabeth Snyder for 30 years, returning in 1892 to bring it back to Marlborough. The bell now hangs in a tower at the corner of Route 85 and Main Street.

Around that time, Marlborough is believed to have been the first community in the country to receive a charter for a streetcar system, edging out Baltimore by a few months. The system, designed primarily for passenger use, provided access to Milford to the south, and Concord to the north. As a growing industrialized community, Marlborough began attracting skilled craftsmen from Quebec, Ireland, Italy, and Greece.[2]

At the start of the Civil War, 1861-1865, Marlborough’s area included what is now the Town of Hudson (which was incorporated in 1866) and over those years the average population was about 6,200 people. The total number who saw war service was, according to a prominent veteran, 831. This would be 13 ½% of the population, and of those, 91, or more than one in eleven died in the service. Marlborough men served in seventy different army organizations in the Civil War besides those who served in the navy.

Continually since the Revolutionary War, there had been at least one militia company in Marlborough, and district regimental musters were held in Marlborough or some nearby town every year. In the 1840s there were three Marlborough companies, and in the 1850s one company, and in 1860 there were two rifle companies. When the call came from President Lincoln to furnish troops in the spring of 1861, both of these companies were recruited to full strength, and eager to go into action. They were Companies F and I of the 13th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. They were fully equipped, even gaudily; their high-crowned hats had a big black feather ornament on one side and a bronze American Eagle on the other. While they impatiently awaited orders in Marlborough, some of their members resigned to join other regiments that were assembled at Boston and ready to leave for the front. Resignations were permissible for the volunteer companies of that date were unofficial enterprises of patriotic civilians, and were not subject to government regulations until mustered into the United States Army.

Meanwhile a band of musicians made up of twenty Marlborough men had volunteered and been accepted to accompany the 5th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, and plans to recruit a regiment in Boston to be comprised entirely of Irish immigrants had matured and the 9th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment including Company G made up of 65 Marlborough men under Capt. John Carey of Marlborough had been mustered into the U.S. Army on June 11, 1861, for a 3-years service. Finally after what seemed to be never-ending delays, the call came for the 13th Massachusetts Regiment, and Marlborough’s companies F and I, left by train at the Main Street depot for Boston, and were mustered into the U.S. Army for three years on July 16, 1861.

The Marlboro Journal and Mirror of July 16, 1864 notes in two brief paragraphs that Co. I of the 5th Mass. Reg. Left Marlborough on July 13th under Capt. A.A. Powers for the camp at Readville near Boston, numbering 130 men. And on July 15th another company entrained for the same camp under Capt. David L. Brown, who was the lieutenant of Co. I of the 13th when the John Brown Bell was taken from Harper’s Ferry in 1861.

Another company was furnished from Marlborough to serve a term of nine months, so that in all, six companies were recruited in Marlborough, the three later ones including many who re-enlisted after being discharged from earlier service. With so many men in so many different branches of the Military Services, Marlborough was represented in campaigns throughout the whole southland. The Irish Volunteers who were the first to leave Marlborough suffered the most casualties, including 18 men and Capt. John Carey. The two companies in the 13th Regiment lost in all 21 men, including John L. Spencer who was the first to die of all the Marlborough men and who succumbed at Harper’s Ferry. The whole Town of Marlborough turned out for his funeral, even though he had no family in Marlborough, as this was the first instance of the tragedy of the war. Many Marlborough men lost an arm or leg, and Postmaster John. S. Fay suffered the loss of both an arm and leg, after which he was confined in Libby prison. Others suffered at Andersonville Prison.

Rice Street - Named for Henry Rice (1786-1867) a well known Boston politician and War of 1812 Veteran. Upon Rice's death, his estate near the center of Marlborough 42.34765°N 71.54924°W was sold to build housing for workers in the shoe factories that were being established in the rapidly industrializing town. Rice Street in the Middle Village area near downtown Marlborough was named after Henry at that time.

Shoe manufacturing continued in Marlborough long after the industry had fled many other New England communities. Rice & Hutchins, Inc. operated several factories in Marlborough from 1875 to 1929. Famous Frye boots were manufactured here through the 1970s, and The Rockport Company, founded in Marlborough in 1971, continues to maintain an outlet store in the city. In 1990, when Marlborough celebrated its centennial as a city, the festivities included the construction of a park in acknowledgment of the shoe industry, featuring statues by the sculptor David Kapenteopolous.

There were 14,501 households out of which 30.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.5% were married couples living together, 9.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 36.0% were non-families. 28.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 8.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.47 and the average family size was 3.07.

In the city the population was spread out with 23.3% under the age of 18, 7.0% from 18 to 24, 36.7% from 25 to 44, 21.5% from 45 to 64, and 11.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 97.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.8 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $56,879, and the median income for a family was $70,385. Males had a median income of $49,133 versus $32,457 for females. The per capita income for the city was $28,723. About 4.7% of families and 6.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.9% of those under age 18 and 10.3% of those age 65 or over.

MWRTA Route 7C (Inner City Marlborough) line runs roughly east-west through Marlborough. This route runs through the downtown Marlborough and connects multiple Shopping Complexes/Malls, residential localities and Marlborough Hospital.[19] Transfers can be made between routes 7 and 7C at the Marlborough City Hall stop.[18][20]

Note: Municipalities not listed above have a town meeting form of government. Municipalities listed above in italics have a city form of government, but have retained the name prefix "Town of " as part of their official names.